NFL To Air Commercial-Free Fourth Quarter During Peacock's Bills-Chargers Match-Up

Plan your bathroom breaks accordingly: An upcoming NFL game will cut back on the commercials in a big way.

Peacock announced Thursday that its Dec. 23 broadcast of the Buffalo Bills-Los Angeles Chargers match-up will feature a commercial-free fourth quarter, marking an NFL first. Aside from a "branded moment" at the top of the fourth quarter — featuring Capital One, Hyundai and Walmart as sponsors — there will be no ad breaks for the remainder of the game, resulting in more than 12 additional minutes of game-related coverage.

There will, however, be "special content takeovers" in lieu of commercial time, including studio updates and analysis brought to viewers by the aforementioned sponsors.

"The power of live sports is more prevalent than ever, and at NBCUniversal, we not only have the scale of our broadcast platform, but we now can reach an entirely new audience through Peacock," read a statement from Mark Marshall, NBCUniversal's chairman of global advertising and partnerships. "With this one-of-a-kind sponsorship environment attached to our first-ever exclusive Peacock NFL game, we are able to connect an untapped set of consumers to our marketers, and we couldn't be more grateful to our partners at the NFL for trusting us to creatively launch this groundbreaking format."

Coverage of the Bills-Chargers face-off will stream exclusively on Peacock beginning Saturday, Dec. 23 at 8/7c. Preceding that, coverage of the Cincinnati Bengals versus the Pittsburgh Steelers will air on NBC and Peacock starting at 4:30 pm ET. Peacock also boasts the first-ever NFL playoff game to be exclusively streamed, airing a Wild Card match-up in primetime on Saturday, Jan. 13.

How do you feel about no commercials in the fourth quarter? Hit the comments!